ACL compiles a daily media monitoring service of stories of interest to the Christian constituency relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. Visit the ACL’s website each day to see what’s of interest in the news. Please note that selection of the articles does not represent ACL endorsement of the content.

A new, more accurate and less invasive test for foetal chromosomal disorders will be available in Australia next year, but concerns have been raised about it also being used for selective abortions based on gender. Non-invasive prenatal testing is available in the United States and blood tests from Australian women are now sent to America for screening at a cost of about $900.

The medical care of more than 100 women a year in NSW could be put at risk if a controversial law giving personhood status to a foetus of 20 weeks is passed through Parliament, the Australian Medical Association says. Fairfax Media has obtained data under freedom-of-information laws revealing public hospitals in NSW carried out 119 medical abortions for women who had passed the 20th week of pregnancy, for reasons including severe maternal distress, foetal death or severe foetal disease.

It sounds at first blush like the ultimate in crass capitalism, but a new study suggests that paying people $10,000 to donate a kidney would actually cut down on health care costs in the long run, ease waiting lists, and improve the lives of patients, reports NBC News. The Canadian researchers say that even if donations ticked up a modest 5%, that would save $340 per patient, thanks mostly to reduced dialysis costs. If donations went up 20%, it would save about $4,000 per patient, reports CTV News.

The family founded on marriage is the “natural centre of human life” and protecting children and elderly people is a “choice of civilisation,” Pope Francis said in an address Friday morning. Speaking to the 21 plenary meeting of the Pontifical Council for the Family, the pope said, “Children and the elderly represent the two poles of life and also the most vulnerable, the most often forgotten.” “A society that abandons children and that marginalizes the elderly will sever its roots and dark future,” he said. “The family is founded on marriage,” the pope said. “Through an act of free and faithful love, newlywed Christians testify that marriage as sacrament, is the foundation on which rests the family and makes stronger the union of spouses and their mutual self-giving.”

Cougar violence just won’t cut it on Australian TV. The Advertising Standards Board of Australia has banned the television commercial ad for the dating Web site Cougar Life for featuring unjustifiable violence by a woman to others. The ad watchdog has received complaints over the 30-second commercial, which is said to be sexually suggestive and is better suited to an “adults only” channel.

Facebook's decision to permit, in effect, the universal dissemination of real beheadings to anyone with eyes to look at a screen is a contribution to the brutalisation of the world and ultimately a blow against the freedom of expression to which the company claims to be devoted.

The Perth couple who were unwittingly conned into become multi-million dollar drug mules after winning a dream trip to Canada feared they could have spent the rest of their lives in prison. The elaborate con duped the couple by taking them to Canada as "winners" of an all-expenses paid trip, which included accommodation and new luggage.

Two days prior to "a vote in principal of Bill 52" at the National Assembly, the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice presents an Oregon physician, Dr Kenneth Stevens, who will describe how the Oregon physician assisted suicide law has caused hundreds of physician assisted suicides over the past 15 years. He will also describe how if the current Bill 52 on euthanasia is passed in Quebec, hundreds of Quebecers will die annually at the hands of doctors.

The High Court could hear a challenge to the ACT same-sex marriage laws before any weddings are held. Chief Justice Robert French told a directions hearing on Friday he was working towards having the case heard when the full court sits from December 3 to 6.

The High Court has indicated a challenge against the ACT's same-sex marriage laws may not be heard before early December. On Tuesday, the ACT became the first jurisdiction in Australia to pass laws legalising same-sex marriages. But the Federal Government argues the laws are not consistent with the Commonwealth Marriage Act and is seeking an expedited hearing to prevent same-sex couples from marrying in Canberra.

Married couples enjoy far greater wealth and health than those who cohabit, an influential think-tank revealed yesterday. They are more likely to own their home, have better jobs and be more highly educated – and less likely to struggle to pay the bills. They have less chance of splitting up and their children are less likely to smoke or take drugs, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies said.

Nationwide protests have been planned for next month in response to the Federal Government’s attempts to overturn successfully enacted state or territory based same-sex marriage laws through the High Court. The rallies, set to take place in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth on November 23, will call for marriage laws – such as those recently passed by the ACT Parliament and to soon be considered by NSW’s parliament – to be upheld while also highlighting the need for reforms at a federal level. Cat Rose, co-convener of Community Action Against Homophobia, said though the success of the ACT legislation on October 22 was a historic day it was likely that state or territory-based same-sex marriage laws will not provide full marriage equality, particularly for transgender or intersex people.

Behind the scenes rumblings in the Tasmanian Government have exploded into the open after backbencher Brenton Best called for Premier Lara Giddings to be replaced. Mr Best told The Advocate newspaper: "I just can't see a way forward with the current leader." The Labor backbencher has been openly critical of his party's power sharing deal with the Greens and has repeatedly attacked Greens Leader and Cabinet Minister Nick McKim.

A Canberra brothel madam who kept a Thai woman as a sex slave has had her jail sentence cut after an appeal. In 2012 Watcharaporn Nantahkhum, 46, was found guilty by a jury of six charges including that she had kept one of her employees as a slave.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says Australia has "rebooted" its relationship with Malaysia in an effort to tackle the people smuggling trade. In his weekly briefing on Operation Sovereign Borders Mr Morrison said a meeting yesterday with Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs Dr Ahmad Zahid Bin Hamidi had resulted in the restarting and upgrading of two important initiatives to stop the movement of asylum seekers across the nation's borders.

Some pe
ple may be puzzled, even angered, that the title to this lecture ends in a question-mark. Surely, we already know that the story of child sexual abuse in churches is a story of shocking moral failure. Story after story has appeared in the media in Australia in recent years of terrible sexual exploitation of children - and if that were not bad enough, the cover-up of those crimes by superiors in the Church who, for whatever reason, chose not to involve the police or to act protectively towards children.

Supermarkets should have a designated Australian-only aisle, or aisles, according to a farmer who says the scheme would generate an ''absolutely huge'' boost in sales of locally grown or made goods, protect local jobs and stimulate the economy.